Update Post: The Wiki White House Web – Sorry, Dan

22 Sep 2014

My political prediction black eye

Disclosure/side note: I had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to present on a topic with a member of the White House Digital Engagement team on September 19, 2014. It got me thinking. I’ve had this blog for some time, so from time to time, I go back and read what I’ve written, predicated or been a blowhard about to see if my predictions came true. Some did, while others crashed and burned. And being AT the White House with the digital team reminded me that I had written a post about the likelihood of a “digital presidency.”

No one every goes back and slams a weatherman for being wrong. Sports prognosticators, unless they are engaged in gambling rackets gentleman’s wagering clubs, rarely get their feet held to the fire (literally) for their erroneous predictions. But the Internet is forever, and if I go out and criticize someone’s predictions, I should be able to stand up to scrutiny six years later. So here’s a quick synopsis of what Dan predicted, what I responded with, and what the currently reality is now. It’s a score card, and it’s not pretty.

White House blogs:

What Dan predicted: “Imagine a White House Web site where staffers maintain blogs in which they write about who they are and what they are working on.”

My response: “White house staffers may, in fact, be allowed to have their own blogs, but they will be so watered down by legal concerns that I fear that they might turn into a Twitter feed: ‘Just went out for coffee. Tastes burnt.’ In a town where secrets are coveted but leaks like a sieve, there would be little compelling news to keep a blog fresh, but more importantly, interesting. The lawyers will do what they do, which is lawyer things to death.”

The score: Dan 1, Mark 0. Proof point: check out the White House blog section, authored by White House staffers, covering a wide variety of topics. And it’s not someone ghost writing for Obama; it’s the staffers themselves giving their takes.

Streamed (video) meetings:

My response: “Only the most vanilla meetings will be streamed. There is a reason why reporters are kicked out of the room when the real stuff happens. Anything else would be staged like a FEMA press conference.”

Public Calendars

What Dan predicted: …a WhiteHouse.gov on which “… the president’s daily calendar is posted online.”

My response: “The President’s Daily Calendar would have to omit outside appearances, which would gut its effectiveness, because of Secret Service prohibitions. And why tell the opposition party that you are meeting on something that you might want to keep in-house. To do otherwise would be stupid.”

Policy Wiki

What Dan predicted: “And while that may sound impossible, organizations like Wikipedia provide one model for handling vast quantities of user-submitted content with great if not perfect success.”

My response: “Major policy proposal proposal workspaces? Too many cooks spoil the broth. Research Selogene Royale’s presidential campaign in France. She turned her Web site into an electronic “listening tour” and requested policy input from French voters. She ended up with a party platform that stretched from Normandy to Nice. This is good in principle, and lousy in practice.”

The score: Dan 4, Mark still zilch.

Campaign Promises

What Dan predicted a site on which “… progress towards campaign promises is tracked on a daily basis.”

My response: “Trust me, the Republicans will do that for them. And if they don’t keep a campaign promise, do you think the Web site will have a big, red “X” in the “We Didn’t Keep This” column?”

Miscellaneous

What Dan predicted: “Because the Internet doesn’t look kindly on information that just flows one way. To live up to their promises, the president and his staff are going to have to do more than just talk — they’re going to have to listen, and respond.”

My response: Screw it. Let’s just say again that I was wrong. See below. Score: Dan 5.5, Mark .5, with two caveats. First, the Obama administration has had the good fortune (and wisdom) to take advantage of timing to become the first “digital administration.” I think that any political operation worth their weight in salt would have taken advantage of standing social media tools. Heck, even George W. Bush’s Facebook page has, at the time of this writing, 4,084,849 Likes. So had his administration served at a different time (or Hillary, or someone else), somebody would have stepped forward and developed a digital strategy that puts information where people already surf and are likely to see it.

But I would be remiss if I didn’t mention one area of the site that I bet even its inventors regret: the Petitions page. This section …”a new platform that gives all Americans a way to create and sign petitions on a range of issues affecting our nation. And if a petition gathers enough online signatures, it will be reviewed by policy experts and you’ll receive an official response.” And you get get this with just 5,000 signatures in 30 days.

Ouch

I read a what I labeled a pretty much a snarky, dreamy-eyed HuffPo piece and essentially tore the predictions to shreds. Most the commenters on that post agreed me with as well. And as you’ll see from my own score card, I pretty much got my ass handed to me in the prediction department.

Sorry, Dan.

You were right, and I was wrong. I guess we DO have a Wiki White House.

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Comments

Those weren’t so much predictions as they were hopeful
statements about what could be. Or, looking back at them now, what might have
been. I don’t think any of the ways the Obama administration has harnessed the
Internet contribute much to actual transparency about how business is conducted
there. The blogs are hardly revelatory; decision-making meetings are still
shrouded in secrecy; the calendar is a farce; and so on. The few genuine
experiments in open sourcing and public comment have been on the margins, and
not particularly successful. So while more has been done than you expected,
considerably less has been done than I hoped. Let’s call it a draw!
Dan

Thanks for reading as well as for your thoughts on how the current administration has harnessed the Internet. I’m glad to know that you could read my public (although six years later) apology, and you seem to have a great sense of humor about the “draw.”